Mary Patchett

Patchett, an only child, grew up on a cattle station near Texas in Queensland, enabling her to portray Australian animals realistically in their natural habitat and set her stories authoritatively. After working for five years as a features journalist for the Sun group of newspapers, she left to work in England as a freelance writer in 1931, returning for holidays. Her first published book Ajax the Warrior (1953), originally broadcast in 1952 on the BBC Children's Hour, was largely autobiographical. …